Primetime Blues

By Donald Bogle

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Primetime BluesA landmark study by the leading critic of African American film and television

Primetime Blues is the first comprehensive history of African Americans on network television. Donald Bogle examines the stereotypes, which too often continue to march across the screen today, but also shows the ways in which television has been invigorated by extraordinary black performers, whose presence on the screen has been of great significance to the African American community.

Bogle's exhaustive study moves from the postwar era of Beulah and Amos 'n' Andy to the politically restless sixties reflected in I Spy and an edgy, ultra-hip program like Mod Squad. He examines the television of the seventies, when a nation still caught up in Vietnam and Watergate retreated into the ethnic humor of Sanford and Son and Good Times and the poltically conservative eighties marked by the unexpected success of The Cosby Show and the emergence of deracialized characters on such dramatic series as L.A. Law. Finally, he turns a critical eye to the television landscape of the nineties, with shows such as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, I'll Fly Away, ER, and The Steve Harvey Show.

Note: The ebook edition does not include photos.

More by Donald Bogle

Donald Bogle In Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, Donald Bogle tells–for the first time–the story of a place both mythic and real: Black Hollywood. Spanning sixty years, this deliciously entertaining history uncovers the audacious manner in which many blacks made a place for themselves in an industry that originally had no place for them.

Through interviews and the personal recollections of Hollywood luminaries, Bogle pieces together a remarkable history that remains largely obscure to this day. We discover that Black Hollywood was a place distinct from the studio-system-dominated Tinseltown–a world unto itself, with unique rules and social hierarchy. It had its own talent scouts and media, its own watering holes, elegant hotels, and fashionable nightspots, and of course its own glamorous and brilliant personalities.

Along with famous actors including Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Hattie McDaniel (whose home was among Hollywood’s most exquisite), and, later, the stunningly beautiful Lena Horne and the fabulously gifted Sammy Davis, Jr., we meet the likes of heartthrob James Edwards, whose promising career was derailed by whispers of an affair with Lana Turner, and the mysterious Madame Sul-Te-Wan, who shared a close lifelong friendship with pioneering director D. W. Griffith. But Bogle also looks at other members of the black community–from the white stars’ black servants, who had their own money and prestige, to gossip columnists, hairstylists, and architects–and at the world that grew up around them along Central Avenue, the Harlem of the West.

In the tradition of Hortense Powdermaker’s classic Hollywood: The Dream Factory and Neal Gabler’s An Empire of Their Own, in Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, Donald Bogle re-creates a vanished world that left an indelible mark on Hollywood–and on all of America.

From the Hardcover edition.

“Donald Bogle [is a] pioneering safe-keeper of the history of blacks in film.”—Vogue

From Donald Bogle, author of the bestselling Dorothy Dandridge and Toms, Coons, Mulattos, Mammies, and Bucks, a groundbreaking history of African American portrayals in Hollywood, comes the long-awaited, definitive biography of one of America’s brightest and most troubled theatrical stars: actress and singer Ethel Waters. In Heat Wave, Bogle explores Waters’ relationships with other performing greats, including Lena Horne, Count Basie, Vincent Minnelli, and many others, and paints a vivid, deeply human portrait of this legendary performer—a must-read for any fan of jazz, blues, and classic American cinema.

Donald Bogle Discover the unique, profound, and unlikely yet enduring friendship between two of the most prominent and beloved celebrities of all time—Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson—in this “exhaustively researched…consistently absorbing” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) biography.

From the moment Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson met, they were fascinated by one another. He peered into her violet eyes and was transfixed; she, in turn, was dazzled by his talent, intrigued by his sweet-tempered childlike personality, and moved by the stories she had already heard about his troubled early life. Soon a deep friendship blossomed, unlike anything either had ever experienced. Through their various emotional upheavals, the peaks and valleys of their careers, their personal traumas and heartaches, their countless health issues and extreme physical pain, and the glare of the often merciless public spotlight, their love for each other endured.

Award-winning biographer Donald Bogle skillfully re-creates the moving narrative of “these two forces of nature, and digs into the extraordinary histories that made them uniquely suited to understanding each other” (Alan Light, author of Let’s Go Crazy). Through the recollections of friends and acquaintances of the two stars, as well as credited and anonymous sources, Elizabeth and Michael emerges as a tender, intimate look at this famous “odd couple”—and a treasure to their millions of fans.

Donald Bogle A landmark study by the leading critic of African American film and television

Primetime Blues is the first comprehensive history of African Americans on network television. Donald Bogle examines the stereotypes, which too often continue to march across the screen today, but also shows the ways in which television has been invigorated by extraordinary black performers, whose presence on the screen has been of great significance to the African American community.

Bogle's exhaustive study moves from the postwar era of Beulah and Amos 'n' Andy to the politically restless sixties reflected in I Spy and an edgy, ultra-hip program like Mod Squad. He examines the television of the seventies, when a nation still caught up in Vietnam and Watergate retreated into the ethnic humor of Sanford and Son and Good Times and the poltically conservative eighties marked by the unexpected success of The Cosby Show and the emergence of deracialized characters on such dramatic series as L.A. Law. Finally, he turns a critical eye to the television landscape of the nineties, with shows such as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, I'll Fly Away, ER, and The Steve Harvey Show.

Note: The ebook edition does not include photos.

Donald Bogle The films, the stars, the filmmakers -- the struggles, the triumphs: all get their due in Hollywood Black, a sweeping overview of blacks in film, covering more than a century of cinema with striking photos and an engrossing history by award-winning author Donald Bogle.Hollywood Black opens in the silent film era, when white actors in blackface often played black characters and D. W. Griffith premiered his shocking, controversial The Birth of a Nation. Sound motion pictures were ushered in by Al Jolson in blackface in The Jazz Singer, but in this new era of filmmaking, black performers like Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Louise Beavers, Paul Robeson, and Butterfly McQueen began finding a place in Hollywood. More often than not, they were saddled with rigidly stereotyped roles, but still, some gifted performers were able to turn in significant performances. Hollywood Black will spotlight such talents, notably Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Academy Award, for her work in Gone With the Wind (1939).In the coming decades, more black talents would light up the screen. Dorothy Dandridge became the first African American actress to earn a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Carmen Jones in 1954, and Sidney Poitier would be the first black actor to win a Best Actor Oscar in 1963's Lilies of the Field. Hollywood Black reveals the changes in images that came about with the evolving social and political atmosphere of the country, from the Civil Rights era to the Black Power movement.Hollywood Black will follow through the Blaxploitation era with movies like Shaft and Super Fly and the arrival of such directors as Gordon Parks and Melvin Van Peebles; to the emergence in the late 1970s and '80s of such stars as Diana Ross, Whoopi Goldberg, Richard Pryor, and Eddie Murphy; and of directors Spike Lee, John Singleton, and the Hughes brothers. The book comes up to the present with filmmakers such as Steve McQueen (Twelve Years A Slave), Gina Prince Bythewood (The Secret Life of Bees),Lee Daniels (Precious),F. Gary Grant (Straight Outta Compton), Nate Parker (who directed his own version of The Birth of a Nation) -- and such megastars as Denzel Washington; Will Smith; Halle Berry; Viola Davis, and a glorious gallery of others. With photographs and stories of stars and filmmakers on set and off, Hollywood Black tells an enthralling, underappreciated history.